BANFF — Rapid Randy Ambrosie, in his short time as CFL commissioner, has definitely been a man of action.

Will he continue to keep his finger on the fast forward button when it comes to the concept of moving up the CFL schedule? Will the league, sooner than later, move they Grey Cup game from the last week of November to the first? After talking to the presidents and general managers, is the track clear from here?

Edmonton president and CEO Len Rhodes, who first put the concept on the agenda four years ago, thinks it is.

“When Randy came in he was sincere and genuine about having the conversation. And it appears coming out of here nothing seems to be insurmountable in terms of a barrier holding it back.

“I think it’s a question of timing, working with the rights holders and working with the players association but I’m really, really positive it’s going to happen,” said Rhodes, here for the league’s general managers meetings.

Ambrosie said there’s a lot involved in moving forward.

“The important question we wanted to have answered here was if there was anything we might be missing?” he said. “If we’re going to talk to our fans about it as I’m planning to do in the weeks and months ahead, if we’re really planning to have a national conversation about our season, you have to know the logistical issues.

“This was an opportunity to talk to our general managers. And the nice thing to report is that there were no show-stoppers. There was no issue that came up that they didn’t see a solution to. I’m encouraged.

“Now we can go to our board of governors having had the conversation and inform them that it was positive. Having these conversations released some anxiety I’ve had about what might we be missing.

“There’s a carpenters axiom. Measure twice. Cut once. You don’t want to get all the way to the goal line and have somebody say: ‘Wait. Did you think about this?’ It kind of removed the concerns I had that we had not thought through the football issues.”

There were several concerns when it came to training camps.

Saskatchewan GM Chris Jones made the point that a lot of clubs, such as the Roughriders at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, use college dorms for training camp.

“We’d have to look at when we’d be able to get access in May. If they wouldn’t be available, we might have to use our own facility in Regina and put them in a hotel. That would cost more I would think. But how much I don’t know.

“One thing that was discussed was that if we did move the schedule up we’d have to move our draft up,” said Jones. “We’d have to move free agency up. There are things like that. But they weren’t obstacles that we wouldn’t be able to overcome.”

Edmonton general manager Brock Sunderland said it was an interesting exercise.

“It was basically an open conversation about if there were any glaring obstacles that might make it impossible. We talked through several scenarios about obstacles that we thought there might be. There are obstacles, but none of them seemed to be roadblocks. I think there is momentum there.”

So, where to from here?

“Now we have to look at the pragmatic issues about how it would work in terms of growing our game. How do we have more people watching in the stands and how do we have more people watching on TV?” said Ambrosie.

The biggest roadblock would appear to be television.

TSN would need to be convinced this would be good for them. Effectively they have a veto.

“Obviously, we will need to talk to our partners and rights holders, particularly TSN,” said Ambrosie. Once upon a time the CFL telecast schedule didn’t kick in until CBC televised the Labour Day Classic from Calgary. One reason for that was the difficulty of selling commercials in the summer months. It was different when the kids went back to school and the work forces returned from vacation. And the big attraction of having playoff games and the Grey Cup to show in November was how it led into the Christmas shopping season.

“I think a lot of people forget that the reason the schedule is the way it is that you get more viewers traditionally in the fall. That traditionally leads to better ratings that leads to us to have better economics,” said TSN’s vice-president Paul Graham.

“We’re not necessarily against the league starting earlier, but we would have to have a discussion with the league about how it would reflect the economics. Me, personally, I’m OK with moving the schedule a couple of weeks earlier and I think TSN generally is OK with it. But there would have to be a discussion about how it affects our business.”

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